Pledge/Prayer: President Gerri Lewis
Song: Led by Bill McLaughlin
Brent's Flim/Flam: Low hand won by Bob Antoniac
Raffle: Won by Al Lindquist, Bill O'Shaughnessy, and Ran King
Happy Bucks: Bob Hester had a very moving trip to France where he visited the Normandy beaches, cemetaries and museums. Also a wonderful time in Paris. Many other Happy $'s.
Announcements:
President Gerri - Dues are past due!!!!!
Bill Suits - Outreach committee had a good year, gearing up for the coming year.
Brent - Next year's golf tourney; get to corporate sponsers before year end and their budgets are set.
Matt Rubin - Soup Kitchen Dine Out Books, just $30, let's support this good cause!
President Gerri - Soup Kitchen reception at Water's Edge on October 24th, 5-7 PM, for supporters. Cost of the reception borne by Water's Edge!
Jess Wenzel - Reviewed club finances. All in good shape with recent upturn in the market helping.
Program: Peter Manley introduced Don DeCesare, President and General Manager of WLIS and also Chairman of the Connecticut Broadcasters Association.
Don started his talk with two trivia questions;
1. Who is Michael Powell? A. Chairman of the FCC.
2. What's the significance of the date February 17, 2009? A. The day analog TV signals go away and the only TV broadcast will be in HD TV. All the Connecticut TV stations now are broadcasting in HD (as well as analog) All 1100 TV stations in the country have or will have changed over to this technology by 2/17/2009. Don stated that this date has been extended once and is not likely to be extended again. Don claimed the FCC "'decreed" this change and technology to be in the "best interest of the country". Those of us who have HD TV's or have viewed HD broadcasting will agree it is really startling, but, there is no choice! When FM came out, AM radio was still with us. Not so this time. Also all the channel numbers that we know today will change and the free'd up bandwidth will be auctioned off by the FCC to other carriers (but not for commercial TV). There is a feeling among the broadcasters that this move is all about money, many of our members agreed. As well as analog TV's, analog VCR's and DVD players also will not work as they do today. There is supposedly a "down converter" that might be available to allow conversion in your home from HD to analog signals allowing the older technolgy to function. There are only prototypes being developed today and there is no further information about them, who would provide them and at what cost. The word to the wise, according to Don is not to buy an analog TV in the future no matter how attractive the pricing may be. This announcement brought to you by your government.
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